Page 4 of Witches Be Damned

A big feather scratched across a scroll glowing with golden light.

Please don’t write that on my file,I asked the Almighty.I blabber when I get nervous.

The feather impatiently flicked at me to continue my confession.

Damn. I had way too much to confess for this restless deity. Maybe a summary of the important parts might do. A paragraph, not a novel.

Yes, I definitely sinned. Imagined you smiting my enemies. Took your name in vain way too many times to count.

Another sweep of the feather.

Oh, God. I hadn’t even gotten to being carnal with four men at once, and out of wedlock, no less. Yep, I was going straight to Hell and burning for an eternity. Still, I tried to bargain my way out of it.

Doesn’t confession absolve me of my sins?I asked the Almighty.

The feather noted that.

Can you reconsider writing all that in my file? I’ll be good from now on.

The nervy feather gestured at me again, urging me to continue, since he had another three thousand souls to judge today.

I sinned with four gorgeous, extraordinary men, who I fell in love with and gave my heart to.

Love is not a sin,the Almighty replied.

Wait. That didn’t sound right. I snapped out of my imaginary judgment session, where I retreated into the depths of my mind to avoid reality.

Metal hinges squeaked as the door to my cage yanked open. Adrenaline dampened the numbness over my mind from the drugs these bastards fed me. Rough fingers gouged my arm as two vampires dragged me out, kicking and screaming. Yeah, my body worked all right, though not as well as it would when fully conscious.

I found myself in this precarious predicament when Pascal and I investigated a Brotherhood of Serpents trafficking ring of gantii, and we were ambushed by vampires, him injured, possibly dead. My heart ached, and I hadn’t stopped crying since they dragged me away from him and prevented me from saving him. Now I might never see him again. Drugged and out of it, I awoke in a cave where a very large and intimidating vampire hovered over me, threatening to kill Raze if I didn’t find a cure for his race.

Oh, yeah, karma caught up with me, that bitch dragging me through hell and back. Surely, the Almighty would take pity on me for that. A girl could dream.

I dangled furiously in the vamps’ hold as they carried me to a chair, dumping me roughly on my ass, ready to face my next torture session with their cruel leader, Styx. The reason why I languished in a dreamlike state and got all my sins off my chest before I perished, hoping to make good with the Almighty and save myself from Hell.

Computer screens winked letters and numbers, and I blinked at them, the last of my drug haze wearing off. Blood test results, DNA sequences, gene maps, and medical scans, some conducted by me, others by Dr. Jeffries—the geneticist kidnapped by the vampires and rescued by my team. The damn vamps forced her to find a cure under duress of the threat of killing her child if she didn’t comply. Exactly the MO they used on me. My men and I rescued the good doctor, and I prayed over and over that they came for me.

Head groggy and back aching from being stuffed into a cage fit for a test dog, I glanced back at the enclosure next to mine. Raze lay curled in a ball, barely able to move, drugged and out of it on his side, crammed into a cage far too small for his size.

How many of my men were going to lose their lives in the pursuit of these dangerous gantii? The ache in my chest sank deeper, and I could barely breathe at the possibility of us not making it out alive.

An MRI device at the back of the lab caught my eye, and I had to force aside any thought of my men if I had any hope of surviving this. The tech made me wonder how the vamps got hold of it and with what money. I put that in the unsolved mystery files fit for my former competitor, Bailey Sarien, because my brain wasn’t in the game to solve it.

Styx hissed and spat sinister words at me that my bracelet translated. “Are you ready to comply, Little Witch? Or shall we send your mate to the Lycans to earn the bounty on his head?”

Bounty for killing the Lycans’ Alpha. That bastard slaughtered Raze’s dad before his eyes. My wolf was only doing what was natural to avenge his father and protect me from the gantii threatening to do the same to us.

Entering the Lycan world to visit Raze’s father for his birthday created chaos for us. Raze got bitten by the Alpha and injected with werewolf venom and nearly died. The secret my mate hid brought the trust of the team crashing down and nearly cost me my relationship with Knoxe. The warden banished Raze from the Guardians, and the rest, as they say, was history.

My wolf groaned behind me, shifting in his cage, the damn thing rocking, barely able to hold his weight and size. I resisted the urge to look at him.

Styx tapped his long, clawed finger at the computer screen, conveying his demand. “Review the data, Little Witch.”

Data. Tests. Scans. Blood. DNA. Computers. I dared the greatest scientific minds to find answers under duress and with their mind scrambled by drugs.

I raised my bound palms. “If you release the magick-suppression cuffs, I can speed this up and read the answers with my powers.”

DNA molecules were made of chemical nucleotides, which my magick interpreted quicker than any computer. The faster I performed this impossible task, the faster I got Raze and me out of here… preferably not in a body bag.

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